December 2003

News for Wednesday December 24, 2003 · Merry Christmas / Winter Pause   Dear VGA Planets Fans, Merry Christmas to all of you. I wish you some peacefull days of relaxion and reflection. >>> IMPORTANT - HOST PAUSE INFORMATION - PLEASE READ <<< Host will pause from now till 03.01.2004 all games host again on 04.01.2003 at 00:01h there will be a reminder for sending in your turns for most games 24-6 hours before this date but not necessarily for all games so be sure that your turns are in in time (!) I have decided to run ocassional mailchecks in the pause so that turns get checked and sorted in normally. Those mailchecks run randomly and not necessarily each day (!) there will run NO hosts before the given date - not even if all turns are in (!) Fearing the Winter Pause because of possible sudden death because of boredom? This does not have to happen! Life in Forum on the site... ...and in Chat... ...goes on, even on christmas and 31.12. when everone's celebrating! :) In Chat there are also plans to run a VGAP-blitz on 29/30.12. Blitz means you have only some minutes between each turn and all is send through chat. This means much fun and excitement. Who is interested in participating just log into chat at best some time before this day to get informed how this works and sign up for the game.   by Black Shadow

News for Saturday December 20, 2003 · no mailchecks/hosts today   Be greeted Galactic Traveller, today, saturday 20.12., there will be no mailchecks and hosts because I am going on a short trip and cannot look over the host to assure everything is processing fine. So before anything goes wrong and I have a thousand mails in my inbox when coming back I check mail and do all hosts right when I get back. Thanks for your understanding.   by Black Shadow

News for Sunday December 14, 2003 · player verifications   Dear VGA Planets Fans, Yesterday, several accounts were discovered to possibly allow players to play more than one race per game with the same registration key. In keeping with our aggressive stance against cheating on EchoCluster.com, we have paused a number of VGAP games in order to verify the players using accounts involved in this. We want a fair gameplay for everyone so we are now verifying if these players are really playing more than one race in the games. If they do, they will be removed from the game to give other players the chance to participate. Furthermore, as this is a clear rule-break, they risk getting banned from this host for lifetime. We sincerely appreciate the VGA Planets community's help in identifying any attempts to cheat on EchoCluster.com. To report such incidents, please send an email to hacks@echocluster.com. A false report filed by one player against another will not result in the actions described above.   by Black Shadow

News for Friday December 5, 2003 · Ho Ho Ho   Be greeted Galactic Traveller, if christmas could be right now - what would be your wish? Well if it is NEW GAMES we can help you out - if not we can at least help you kill some time... This never has been happened before but here you go: 24 new games!!! (One for each day till christmas) Will all be filled up till christmas? Only Santa himself can tell... Big thanks for helping with the new games goes out to our new staff member StarHawk! Expect many improvements on site and hosting soon, we've settled big plans! (even bigger than 24 games?!) Find out how you can save christmas.   by Black Shadow

News for Thursday December 4, 2003 · mail delay   Dear VGA Planets Fans, please note that we are currently experiencing a heavy E-mail delay from our SMTP-Server. Mail from the host can take up to 6 hours to get to you. Until everything is back to normal be sure to send in your turns in time and be patient when waiting for RSTs. Thank you.   by Black Shadow